Daily Recap — May 22

The week rolls right along and so do we, at the speed of Trump.

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THE JOYS OF NEGOTIATION

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Plans for the historic Rocket Man summit in Singapore next month have been on shaky ground as of late, with RM shaking his fist at the air in response to military exercises that he was fully aware of and agreed let stand. Now, things have been thrown into further doubt after a meeting with South Korean President Moonlight Inn. .

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So what exactly did Trump say about the chances of the summit happening?

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After the meeting, PDT told reporters that he still believes Lil Kim to be “serious” about denuclearization but also acknowledged the very real possibility that the June 12 summit in Singapore falls through.

“We’ll see what happens,” he told reporters.

“There are certain conditions that we want and I think we’ll get those conditions and if we don’t we don’t have the meeting,” he said, adding: “You never know about deals. You go into deals that are 100% certain – it doesn’t happen. You go into deals that have no chance and it happens and, sometimes, happens easily.”

“There’s a very substantial chance that it won’t work out, and that’s OK,” he said with Moonlight at his side. “That doesn’t mean it won’t work out over a period of time, but it may not work out for June 12.”

.The fact that this newly sober assessment comes after a meeting with President Inn is a bit disconcerting, seeing as how the South Koreans are in a much better position to know which direction things are headed than anyone else, sans maybe the Chinese.

Top administration officials refused to place odds on whether the Trump-Rocket Man summit will happen, but said they are moving ahead with planning nevertheless. South Korean officials, however, put the chance of the June 12 summit happening at 99.99%, though I wouldn’t expect them to say much different.

.For his part, Secretary of State Pompeo made a surprise appearance in his department’s press briefing room, his first since becoming the big guy at the State Dept., to assure the administration “will do what it takes” to make the summit happen.

“We’re working toward June 12,” he said.

Sarah Sanders echoed those comments, saying “we’re going to continue in preparations, and we’ll see what happens.”

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How did things go wrong?

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First, I want to caution against assuming that things have necessarily gone wrong. Anyone who thought this would be a squeaky clean process was living in fantasy land. This is a nasty piece of business that is guaranteed to stay nasty until it isn’t.

However, there are several competing explanations for the change in rhetoric as of late and seeds of doubt that have been planted within the last week.

First, North Korea cancelled high-level talks with South Korea, saying the South’s joint military exercises with the US were a “provocation” and rehearsal for invasion. The excuse about military exercises is very weak, though, because as we covered last week, Kim knew all about these exercises and even agreed to allow them to go ahead despite historical misgivings. Thus, this explanation doesn’t stand up to even cursory scrutiny.

Another reason given has been displeasure with the hiring of #TheStache, aka national security adviser John Bolton. The North Koreans never liked him from the start, as he has a reputation as a foreign policy hawk and has said on multiple occasions through the years that he doesn’t trust Kim further than he can be thrown, which, #BelieveMe, isn’t very far.

But Bolton really got under the skin of the Kim crew when he suggested that Rocket Man could be the victim of the so-called “Libyan model” if he tries to BS his way to nuclear missiles. For those of you unfamiliar, that means he could be taken out into the street and killed by his own people with a little help from the international community.

Look, folks, this isn’t a nice game. I know it’s not pleasant to hear things such as that, but the fact is Bolton is there to scare the Kim regime. And it appears to be working. And yes, that’s a good thing. The only reason we’ve gotten as far as we have, which is much further than any administration of the past, is the credible threat of force. They have to believe we mean business or none of this will work.

It’s that simple.

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Then we have PDT’s preferred explanation: China.

Trump told reporters he noticed a change in attitude after Rocket Man met with Chinese President Ping Pong Table a second time. Calling President Table a “world-class poker player,” PDT said he thought things changed after the meeting. “I can’t say that I’m happy about it,” Trump said.

He’s not wrong. It was right after that meeting that Kim started returning to his old sassy self. The timing can’t be ignored. Additionally, China has moved a nuclear-capacity carrier into the South China Sea as a show of force in the region.

The movement of the military assets for strategic purposes could serve as a window into China’s thinking, as a truly successful US/NK deal would seriously undermine their influence in the region.

Remember, Rocket Man is being offered economic prosperity and security guarantees in exchange for denuclearization. Any opening of the market in North Korea would essentially destroy their communist system, which would in turn mean more freedom for the North Korean people. Generally speaking, any turn toward freedom in the region is bad news for China. They seek to control the region and then the world. It’s much harder to do that with free peoples. And an economically prosperous North Korea no longer needs Chinese handouts to survive, which means they’d have one less puppet with which to drive us up the wall.

PDT very well may be right that Ping Pong is playing Poker, though I’d say Chess would be more accurate. In any event, it’s fair to say he has reason to be nervous about the death of communism on the Korean Peninsula. It leaves them out of the loop, which is a pretty big slap in the face to imperial commies.

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BIG PICTURE:

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Everyone take a deep breath. Let’s remember where we were as opposed to where we are now.

When PDT took office, Rocket Man was firing off missiles as fast as they became available and talking trash with each one. Washington and Seoul were to be engulfed in seas of fire, the American people were to bow before the Supreme Leader, yada yada yada.

In the 30+ years of North Korea’s nuclear development, no American president had moved the needle whatsoever with the Kim regime (father or son), unless shipping piles of cash and bags of rice in exchange for pretty please not building nukes could be considered “moving the needle,” in which case it absolutely did — toward nuclearization.

Fast forward a few months after some harsh statements sent the other direction (for a refreshing change) and whaddayaknow — Kim wants to talk. That willingness to come to the table is a miracle in itself. Any foreign policy wonk who claims to have predicted it is likely lying through his/her teeth.

What I’m getting at here is yes, there are choppy waters and there will likely be more, but let’s breathe a little before declaring everything a lost cause and war inevitable. We’ve already come farther than anyone dreamed and, though there are some tough words being exchanged, we are still engaged. And that is a big deal.

Secretary Pompeo used his recent visit to Pyongyang to set up a back channel to communicate with the regime anytime we want. We must remember that some things are meant for public consumption but they don’t necessarily reflect what’s happening behind the scenes.

Bottom line: Things are going to be rough but let’s wait before we declare anything one way or the other. PDT has some talking to do with China, and that will likely determine the path forward with North Korea. We’re using trade as a mechanism for keeping China in check and those negotiations are ongoing.

To quote PDT: “Let’s see what happens.”

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SPEAKING OF CHINA

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We just covered how trade is the mechanism by which we’re getting and will get China to play ball on the world stage. Well, right on time, here is a prime example of what I mean.

Unfortunately, we also have an example of something else we’ve discussed routinely: the need for the media to get the hell out of Trump’s way sometimes.

“Given the clear findings ZTE is guilty of violating U.S. sanctions against Iran and North Korea, why is the administration backpedaling to make it easier for a Chinese company to operate and compete with U.S. companies?” Sen. Christopher Coons (D-DE) demanded of Mnuchin in an appropriations subcommittee hearing.

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To be clear, those senators are absolutely correct to be wary of ZTE. They steal American intellectual property and are attempting to put themselves in a position to spy on every American (and anyone else in the world) who uses a device within their telecom infrastructure. If you want the Chinese government to have access to everything you do on your phone, ZTE is the way to go.

The Commerce Department had imposed sanctions and banned the company from buying U.S. components after they admitted to breaking U.S. sanctions by selling equipment to North Korea and Iran. The agency also cited security concerns that the firm could help China to infiltrate U.S. networks, which is also absolutely correct.

“If the U.S. were ever to go to war with China, which I hope never ever occurs and never even comes into the realm of talking about this, it’s not far-fetched to think that China could disable American cellphones or take control of American networks,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) warned at today’s hearing. Again, the senator is correct, even though he’s about to lose his seat to Patrick Morrissey.

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Supernerd Mnuchin attempted to assure the committee that the administration was taking security matters into account in its approach to ZTE.

“I can assure you that whatever the Commerce Department decides, the intelligence community has been part of the briefings and we will make sure that we enforce national security issues,” he said, before clarifying that the administration was not out to put ZTE out of business.

“The objective was not to put ZTE out of business, the objective was to make sure they abide by our sanctions programs,” he said.

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And then came the media.

The Sometimes Failing/Sometimes Good Wall Street Journal reported today that the Trump administration and China had reached an outline for how to save the company from collapsing under the weight of the sanctions.

Lil Marco Rubio, not bothering to actually speak to the damn White House before talking smack, responded to the report in a tweet, saying that China was “running circles” around the administration in trade negotiations.

Cryin’ Chuck Schumer wasn’t far behind, saying in a statement that a half-hour conversation with PDT on the matter last Friday left him worried. There is no confirmation as of yet regarding whether he was worried enough to cry on the Capitol steps.

“When President Trump shows weakness and backs off on the area where he’s been the toughest with China, it signals to them they can roll over us on issue after issue where they have been rapacious in terms of how they deal with our economy, our intellectual property, the ability of great American companies not to sell things to China,” he said today from the Senate (swamp) floor.

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And then the guy in charge finally spoke.

“President [Ping Pong Table] and I have a great relationship, but there is no deal,” Trump said at the White House.

“We will see what happens. We are discussing deals. We’re discussing various deals,” he said, adding: “As far as ZTE is concerned [PPT] asked me to look into it and I am doing that.”

“And don’t forget for the ones that say, ‘Oh gee, maybe Trump is getting a little bit easy. ZTE, we closed it. It wasn’t another administration, it was this administration that closed it.”

Did you catch that last part? Because it’s important. It was the TRUMP ADMINISTRATION who shut down ZTE’s operation within the United States. Not Saint Obama, George Dubya or Slick Willy. It was the Donald.

His administration was the one who caught on to the scheme in the first place. Or perhaps they were just the first ones to actually do something about it. Either way, it’s pretty damn rich to see all these sudden anti-China hawks render judgment against the guy who is the only damn one out of all of them to actually stick it to China in any way whatsoever.

Yes, there are lots of things thrown out in negotiations. ZTE is probably a tiny fraction of everything that has been discussed. But the worthless swamp took a WSJ report about what could be on the table and that’s all it took for Rubio and his merry men to come out declaring Trump to be the loser in China negotiations.

These people absolutely disgust me.

Listen, Trump knows they’re bad. He’s not stupid. That’s why Mnuchin reminded everyone that any sort of talks regarding Chinese telecom will include our national security apparatus. We’re not starry-eyed about this stuff. Again, IT WAS THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION WHO SHUT THEM DOWN IN THE FIRST PLACE.

What will it take for this POTUS to get the benefit of the doubt? How many times does he have to succeed where the so-called “professional” politicians failed before we sit back and say, “You know, let’s let the guy work before we start freaking out”?

I’d like to say it’s any day now but, frankly, I’m all outta faith.

Keep doing your thing, PDT. The people who put you in the White House believe in you.

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KARMA COMETH FAST

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Of all the figureheads of the #Resistance, one of the most absolutely loathsome is porn lawyer Michael Avenatti. The good news is, people like him rarely make it far without karma paying them a visit and, boy, is she on his doorstep now.

A federal judge today directed Avenatti’s law firm to pay a $10 friggin million judgment to a former legal colleague who claimed he was owed millions.

The firm was ordered to pay the sum by Judge Catherine Bauer, a federal bankruptcy judge in Santa Ana, California, after the Eagan Avenatti firm failed to pay $4.85 million to Jason Frank, who used to work for there, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Frank claims that the firm cheated him out of millions of dollars in pay and apparently the good judge agreed.

LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

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The settlement was decided in January and stated the firm would have to pay the amount in two installments, according to court records. However, Avenatti’s firm failed to pay the initial $2 million to Frank after promising to do so last week.

Under the settlement agreement, if a payment was missed, the firm would accept a court’s judgment requiring it to pay Frank $10 million.

They missed the payment, and now they owe double. My, my, how our cup runneth over. Maybe if Avenatti weren’t running around to every cable news station playing Captain Coochie Cap 24/7 this matter could have been handled appropriately. I guess we’ll never know…..lol.

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Avenatti, in a press statement meant to thumb our eyes in some way, said the ruling is unrelated to his work with Daniels:

“This has nothing to do with the (Stormy Daniels) case or me personally. It is an entirely different law firm and is irrelevant,” he said.

Haha, oh Mike. Just because it’s not related to Stormy doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant. We just wanna see you suffer, bud. And right now this is hitting the spot.

But wait…there’s more!

The Succeeding LA Times also reported a Justice Department lawyer said in court today that Avenatti had defaulted on more than –wait for it– $440,000 in back taxes, penalties and interest he promised to pay the IRS under a different bankruptcy settlement for the law firm.

Meanwhile, Avenatti told a federal judge today that he is concerned that PDT’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who mediated the hush agreement, or members of Cohen’s team have started to leak select audio recordings seized by the FBI during their searches of Cohen’s office and home related to Daniels herself.

“We think that these select leaks are meant to paint a false narrative relating to Mr. Cohen and his business dealings at the same time he is not disclosing numerous other recordings of him speaking with individuals such as Mr. Trump,” he said.

He requested Judge Kimba Wood ask Cohen’s attorneys about the leaks and whether Cohen’s team is the source of the leak.

Avenatti didn’t detail how he is aware of these alleged leaks, how he is aware of the content of the audio recordings, or why he believes the recordings were part of the materials seized by the FBI.

So for those of you keeping score, the guy who gleefully broadcasts the illegally stolen/leaked financial documents of others is upset because THE LAWYER HE’S TRYING TO DESTROY IS LEAKING RECORDINGS OF HIS OWN DAMN SELF TALKING?

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Thank you God for karma, otherwise these people would drive me to madness.

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In any event, Cohen’s attorneys are due in court Thursday for a scheduled hearing involving the search warrant served on Cohen.

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Let’s all pray that poor little Mikey Avenatti gets the justice he so richly deserves.

Hint: it’s not the justice he wants, otherwise it wouldn’t be justice at all.

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FIRST TASTE OF THE OIG REPORT

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Welp, it’s that time. Leading up to the release of the OIG report on the Hillzdawg email probe, set to happen within 2-4 weeks, we’ll be getting little appetizers of things to come. This particular one deals with Hillary’s (suspiciously) close “personal assistant” Huma Weiner.

Huma, wife of disgraced pervert and former NY congressman Spanky Weiner, has proved to be decidedly detrimental to the career of her utterly relatable mother figure, Hillary. At one time brought together by their marriages to perverts, now poor cyber security threatens to tear them apart.

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The OIG will reportedly criticize senior FBI leaders for not moving quickly enough to review a trove of Clinton emails discovered late in the 2016 campaign.

The FBI’s timing has been a sore point for Clinton supporters, who say then-director Leakin’ James Comey’s announcement of the review less than two weeks before election day contributed heavily to her loss. The agency’s findings affirming their decision not to pursue criminal charges against Clinton were disclosed two days before the vote, which many argue was far too late to undo the damage.

Poor babies.

Some FBI officials knew in September 2016 of the emails on Spanky’s laptop but the bureau didn’t obtain a warrant to review them until the following month. I guess the idea is that Hillary’s name could have been cleared much faster if the FBI acted on the emails as soon as they knew about them, assuming a toxic name like “Hillary Clinton” could be cleared at all.

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In his book released last month, “A Higher Loyalty,” Leakin’ James writes that he learned in early October — probably from Deep State McCabe — that Weiner’s laptop might hold a connection to the Clinton email investigation. He said he didn’t recall the conversation clearly and that it seemed like a “passing comment and the notion that [Spanky] Weiner’s computer might connect to … Hillary Clinton made no sense to me.”

Really, genius? These people are thick as thieves, and you don’t see where their computers may have associated info? We had some real geniuses running the bureau there for a bit, huh. That, or he’s insulting our intelligence with another lie. Yeah, I’m gonna go with the latter.

Comey said it wasn’t until the morning of Oct. 27 when FBI officials asked his permission to seek a warrant for the Clinton emails, having determined that “hundreds of thousands of emails” from Clinton’s personal email domain existed on Spanky’s computer and that there was no way he would consent to a search of his entire laptop given the legal trouble he was in.

Some of the emails on the laptop had been forwarded by Abedin to Weiner to be printed out while others had been stored there after being backed up from personal electronic devices.

The FBI subsequently obtained a warrant, and though Comey said he was told there was no chance the email review would be done before the election, he announced on Nov. 6 that, “Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton.”

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WHY THIS PISSES ME OFF:

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Look, I understand full well that this investigation was ordered by Democrats. I understand that the letter to Congress announcing a reopening the case due to Spanky’s laptop was a big reason the investigation was requested in the first place. Thus, I can understand this piece of info being one of the first items released.

That being said….

Hillary Clinton was able to get immunity for virtually her entire inner circle. No grand jury was even impaneled. One of the main subjects of the investigation, Cheryl Mills, was able to sit on her “interrogation,” which was a joke in itself. There was no transcript or recording. Hillary destroyed over 30,000 emails AFTER SUBPOENA. She also destroyed numerous electronic devices AFTER SUBPOENA. The very man who set up her illegal private server was not only given immunity by the DOJ, he refused to even show up to speak to Congress AFTER SUBPOENA.

DO YOU SEE WHERE I’M GOING WITH THIS? THERE ARE A LOT MORE PRESSING MATTERS THAN WHETHER THE DAMN FBI MOVED FAST ENOUGH TO CLEAR HILLARY’S NAME BEFORE ELECTION DAY.

These are the times that test our faith, folks. Like I said, I get that this was the main issue that started the probe, so I can understand why it’s one of the first items to leak.

But knowing that doesn’t make me any less angry. I couldn’t give less of a damn about how fast the FBI moved on Spanky’s emails. If anything, I want to know how exactly she was cleared SO FAST.

You know me, people. I call balls and strikes the best I can. This is a ball, way outside the zone.

I’m ready to get to the good stuff. Considering we’ve seen the personal texts of corrupt FBI agents thanks to this IG, he’s earned the benefit of the doubt….for now.

Go ahead and get this garbage out of the way, Mike. Then let’s start cooking with grease.

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LET’S END WITH GOOD NEWS

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Hilarious news, actually, if you enjoy watching coochie cappers scream at the sky.

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According to a new Reuters poll (not exactly friendly to PDT), Republicans now hold a slim lead over Dims in a generic ballot among registered voters, marking the first time the survey showed the GOP ahead in this election cycle.

For those unfamiliar, a generic ballot is basically a poll that asks likely voters which party they generally support in the upcoming midterms. The question is something akin to, “If the election were held today, which party would you vote for to represent your district?”

The poll showed 38.1% of registered voters said they would vote for a Republican candidate if midterm elections were held today, compared to just under 37% who said they’d vote for a Dim.

Another 15.4% of registered voters said they don’t know what the hell to do, which is good for us because we tend to get the “shy” voters.

For the week ending May 20, pollsters also found that Republicans held a nearly 6-point advantage over Dims. That marked a 9-point swing from the previous week, when Democrats held a 3-point lead among registered voters.

This basically shows an implosion of the Dim party, who led by as much as 16 points last October and had a 10-point edge as late as April.

It’s almost like God himself came down to talk sense into folks.

The really good news, especially for political science nerds such as myself, is that this poll isn’t an outlier. The Reuters poll reflects a larger trend of Republicans closing the gap in the generic ballot. A Fake News CNN poll released earlier this month showed the Democrats with just a 3-point lead over the GOP, which was within the poll’s margin of error. When Fake News CNN finally admits the Dims are losing ground, you know it’s gotten bad.

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Now let’s get to the really really good news.

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The 1-point edge doesn’t seem like much, and don’t get me wrong, we can’t afford to be complacent for one second. But a 1-point lead for Republicans is actually larger when applied to the electoral map.

It’s like this. Dims have an advantage with the popular vote. Sounds great for them, but the problem is, a huge chunk of their voting bloc lives in cities. That means a disproportionate percentage of their total voting base is concentrated in a few areas, especially along the coast.

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I’m not going to make your eyes bleed with math, but here is the big picture. Dims need to have about a 7-point lead in the generic ballot in order to be in position to have a better day than Republicans. Remember, we have an electoral college, so it’s all about winning districts/states. If the Dims don’t have a healthy generic ballot lead, it means there are more districts leaning toward Republican than Dim.

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Republicans are looking very good right now and if this trend continues, Dims are set to make history as the only minority party in history to actually do worse than the party in power in the midterms. They have everything on their side right now and PDT is still beating them.

God it has to be driving them nuts.

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Keep that faith, Trumpers. Don’t let the media convince you that the sky is falling. It’s wishful reporting on their part. If you let them, they will have you depressed every waking moment. That’s what they want. They need you to give up because it’s the only way they can win..

We’re not going to allow that to happen, though. Stay engaged and get ready to hit those voting booths this November..

I want more hilarious videos of coochie cappers screaming at the sky, and I want them now.

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There it is, homeskillet. You know the drill: questions, comments, concerns, memes, insults, compliments, stickers, jokes, emojis and, if we have time, complaints.

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